Disney rides off with £215m tax boost for its UK movies

The Walt Disney Studios has collected £215 million from British taxpayers over the past seven years to reward it for making films in the UK, new figures reveal.

The Government’s film tax credit scheme entitles studios to claim back up to 20 per cent of their expenditure on films which cost more than £20 million.

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Analysis of accounts filed by Disney shows that in 2013 its spending on movies filmed in Britain more than doubled to a record £416 million – a huge chunk of the industry total of £1.1 billion for that year, according to the British Film Institute.

Twelve films were in development here last year, including the musical Into The Woods and Kenneth Branagh’s live-action version of Cinderella, due to be released next month.

The biggest budget was for Thor: The Dark World, which was filmed at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, at a cost of £145.7 million.

The tax credit scheme was introduced in 2007. Payments to Disney peaked at £62.2 million in 2013, up from £28.5 million in 2012.